For a few days now my Quod Libet has been broken, showing only empty space instead of information panes.

I investigated halfheartedly, but did not find the cause with quick googling. Today I decided to change that. I document my path here, because I did not yet write about how I actually tackle problems like these - and I think I would have profited from having a writeup like this when I started, instead of having to learn it by trial-and-error.

Update: Quodlibet 2.6.3 is now in the Gentoo portage tree - using my ebuild. The update works seamlessly. So to get your Quodlibet 2.5 running again, just call emerge =media-sound/quodlibet-2.6.3 =media-plugins/quodlibet-plugins-2.6.3. Happy Hacking!

Update: I got a second reply in the bug tracker which solved the plugins problem: I had user-plugins which require Quod Libet 3. Solution: mv ~/.quodlibet/plugins ~/.quodlibet/plugins.for-ql3. Quod Libet works completely again.

Solution for the impatient: Update to Quod Libet 2.5.1. In Gentoo that’s easy.

systemd is a new way to start a Linux-system with the expressed goal of rethinking all of init. These are my top 5 gripes with it. (»skip the updates«)

Update (2016-09-28): Systemd is an exploit kit just waiting to be activated. And once it is active, only those who wrote it will be able to defuse it — and check whether it is defused. And it is starting: How to crash systemd in one tweet? Alternatives? Use OpenRC for system services. That’s simple and fast and full-featured with minimal fuss. Use runit for process supervision of user-services and system-services alike.

Update (2014-12-11): One more deconstruction of the strategies around systemd: systemd: Assumptions, Bullying, Consent. It shows that the attitude which forms the root of the dangers of systemd is even visible in its very source code.

Update (2013-11-20): Furtherreadingshowsthatpeople have been giving arguments from my list since 2011, and they got answers in the range of “anything short of systemd is dumb”, “this cannot work” (while OpenRC clearly shows that it works well), requests for implementation details without justification and insults and further insults; but the arguments stayed valid for the last 2 years. That does not look like systemd has a friendly community - or is healthy for distributions adopting it. Also an OpenRC developer wrote the best rebuttal of systemd propaganda I read so far: “Alternativlos”: Systemd propaganda(note, though, that I am biased against systemd due to problems I had in the past with udev kernel-dependencies)

But thanks to massive shared action earlier this year, the European parliament can still prevent the problems. For each of the articles there are proposals which fix them. The parliamentarians (MEPs) just have to vote for them. And since they are under massive pressure from large media companies, that went as far as defaming those who took action as fake people, the MEPs need to hear your voice to know that your are real.

If you care about the future of the Internet in the EU, please Call your MEPs.